Welcoming our new IAWP director

Dr. Julie Broome joined us as the new director of our Issues Affecting Women Programme in April 2025. We sat down together to find out a bit more about her background, vision for the programme, and what gives her hope for a future in which all women are safe, free, and have an equal opportunity to thrive. Please join us in welcoming Julie to Oak Foundation!

1.Hi Julie, welcome to Oak! Can you tell me a bit about yourself and your background? How did you begin working in issues that affect women, and why are you passionate about the field?

I have been working in the human rights field for the last 25 years. I started out working mainly in Eastern Europe for the American Bar Association, doing development work. This led me to work for Sigrid Rausing Trust, a grant-making organisation, in its human rights programme. Here, I was focused on transitional justice work in post-conflict environments, which involves seeking accountability for the violations of international law that happened during conflicts. A lot of that work is about seeking justice for sexual violence that occurred against women during dictatorships or armed conflict.

Through this work on seeking justice, I got to know some very exciting organisations in places like the Balkans and Argentina. I was inspired by the way they were thinking about accountability and protecting survivors of violence. For example, I travelled to Northern Uganda and met women who had been forcibly married to soldiers during the conflict there. As a result of these marriages, which were totally outside of their control, many of them had been ostracised from their families or communities. But despite this, these women were so resilient and amazing. They were carrying on with their lives and raising children. This was just one of many groups that I met which inspired me to continue working towards a world in which all women are safe, free, and have an equal opportunity to thrive. Right before joining Oak, I was the director of Ariadne for nine years, which is a network of European human rights and social change funders. There, I made an effort to more actively include women’s funds in the network. These are philanthropic organisations that are led by women and provide financial support to other women-led not-for-profit organisations. Their perspectives, insights and experiences are incredibly valuable for private foundations.

2. What most excites you about beginning this journey with Oak?

I first met the Oak Foundation team back when I was working at Sigrid Rausing Trust. Our work and priorities overlapped with that of several Oak programmes, including the Issues Affecting Women Programme and the International Human Rights Programme. For example, we were both supporting work to protect human rights defenders, including addressing the particular needs of women human rights defenders, and we were both concerned with the impact of technology on human rights. As a result, we were close peers, sharing information, strategies, and brainstorming together. I’ve known Oak for the last 16 years and it’s great to finally be inside the organisation.

Particularly, I’m very excited to be a grant-maker again. Leading a network, in this case Ariadne, gave me a good overview of the different issues in the field, and how philanthropy operates. But leading a network, I didn’t get to work as closely with the partners on the ground as I would have liked. So, I’m excited to be back in this seat as a grant-maker, and to be able to work more closely with the Oak Foundation’s wonderful grantees, to be able to support them with the resources they need to continue doing their great work.

3. What do you hope to do while leading the IAWP programme at Oak? Where do you see the programme heading in the next years?

In the coming years, we will continue supporting organisations working on our priority areas, which include services for victims and survivors, movement strengthening, ending domestic violence, expanding access to community health, and other areas. Essentially, the Issues Affecting Women Programme’s strategy remains unchanged. We will continue to support different groups working in these fields, from women’s funds, to emerging organisations, to community-based groups.

Nonetheless, restrictions in global funding have meant changes in the international funding landscape for many women’s organisations and civil society organisations. Therefore, what is most important in this upcoming period is to support our grantees as much as possible as they navigate these circumstances. I am looking forward to getting to know our grantees better and to continue to support the great work that the programme has been doing for many years.

4. What gives you hope for a future in which all women are safe, free, and have an equal chance to thrive? What inspires you about the work that our partners are doing?

I’m always encouraged and inspired by the work of young, feminist leaders and women’s funds who are working to support people directly in their communities. It’s amazing to see the energy that they have and the commitment they demonstrate every single day. These changemakers are bringing their fresh, new perspectives to work on all kinds of issues, from the environment, to protecting democracy, to striving to ensure rights for all women, everywhere.

One thing that gives me hope is the courageousness of women who report abuse or stand for their rights despite fear of retaliation. For example, our grantee, Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) recently worked alongside women garment factory workers in Indonesia. Together, they played a key role in securing a gender justice agreement with two factories. This agreement will establish a worker-led programme to eliminate gender-based violence and harassment, which had been prevalent in these factories. Because of these courageous women coming forward, many perpetrators were also terminated. We expect that this outcome will influence other positive industry standards in the region.